California Sun Podcast

Dr. Joely Proudfit has traveled from tribal poverty to become a three-time tenured Cal State University professor and was a member of President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Indian Education. She is a leading advocate for Native American education, sovereignty, cultural preservation, and ecological stewardship on behalf of California's largest-in-the-nation American Indian population.

Jonathan Littman, an author and innovation consultant, discusses his recent LA Magazine story that pries open how the traffic app Waze is hacking our city streets and adversely impacting neighborhoods — all with the artificial hope that we might get somewhere a few seconds faster.

Autumn McDonald, the director of New America CA and a former advisor to the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, details her organization's disruptive efforts to promote and aid non-profits in seeking economic equity and inclusion via innovation, technology, and storytelling.

Anne Lamott, the beloved California author, has always strived to help us better understand ourselves. She shares some personal touchstones she holds onto in the midst of turmoil and global chaos and she reminds us that “everything will work if you just unplug it for a few minutes.” Her latest book is "Almost Everything: Notes on Hope."

D.J. Waldie, in the tradition of historians Kevin Starr and Mike Davis, contextualizes our understanding of California and Los Angeles history and explains why, especially given the issues we face today, we’re really “just like the rest of America, but only more so.”

Paul Koretz and Marqueece Harris-Dawson represent polar opposite districts in Los Angeles. Yet the issues they face — housing, climate change, infrastructure, homelessness, and traffic — affect everyone. How they do their job, and whether or not they succeed, could very well determine the future of Los Angeles.

Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, the editor in chief of and long-time Bay Area science writer, talks about the resiliency of the largest estuary on the West Coast, the challenges facing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, and the potential impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on the San Francisco Bay.

What really happened on August 8th and 9th, 1969? In his new book, CHAOS, investigative journalist Tom O’Neill argues that almost everything we know about the Manson murders is wrong. The results of his 20 years of investigation is a searing indictment of local, state, and federal law enforcement, possibly reaching all the way up the FBI and the CIA.

Author and journalist Noam Cohen dares to ask if we really signed up for all the technological change we now take for granted. Did we really need instant delivery of everything, ride-hailing on a whim, the commercialization of residential neighborhoods, or 5,000 friends? Whose disruption is it anyway?

David Ulin, the former book editor of the L.A. Times, points out that few American cities have changed more in the past two decades than Los Angeles. The city that existed at the turn of the century has been reinvented, and the longtime social and cultural critic takes us on a journey through today’s L.A.